Mutual Trans-writings and Generative Modernity

In this contemporary era of economic globalization,which we might register as another phase of the longue durée of modern world history,the human geographies of the world are being transformed across all countries and regions,giving rise to a situation of acute uncertainty,whereby a “unity of disunity” as a general condition of modernity recurs with specific intensity and requires historical reflection of present pertinency.Over a century ago,the British author E.M.Forster gave to one of his characters the half sentence wish,“only connect”,leaving the modern problem of (un) connectability to haunt the written and life world since.This essay takes up such “wish” as a matter of praxis in the ongoing search of “how to connect” throughout modern times.By working through a selection of theoretical and literary texts produced since the 1890s including some material of historical events related to the discussion on “translation,” this essay evokes a genealogy of authors practicing “kuajie shuxie” (transboundary writing) in China as around the world,attentive to the innovations in their special labor toward a possible reciprocity,thereby gesturing toward one path along the direction of what one may call “mutual trans-writings” in the service for a generative modernity.